Hacker News Reader

Comment by axegon_ | Hacker News Reader

No, thanks, I'll stick to qwant: https://old.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1gvcqua/psa_the_ka...

Same for me. I don't understand why they are not able to cleanly separate themselves from Yandex. Their explanations don't help me understand it but only serve as "we hear you and consciously decide to still fund a Russian company".

If anybody reading this is willing to disabuse me of this I'll try to be open for a different perspective.

It's the same as when Russians are asked about the invasion, "I'm not political."

It's worse. Random Russians interviewed on a Moscow street would risk going to jail if they spoke their mind.

Kagi on the other hand is "apolitical" because it is good for business.

Did you type this comment on a device made in China?

After a quick internet search apparently Google produces Pixel phones mainly in Taiwan with additional processes happening in China and India. What is the point you are trying to make?

You did the meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...

When I tried Qwant a few weeks ago, its search results were even worse than Google. So, Kagi it still is.

Is there any sensible explanation why Kagi does funding Yandex? It seems weird to me.

They pay for search results to search providers because Kagi doesn't have an index of their own.

In the link above they say they added Yandex Image search as a provider.

They use their image search results, and according to CEO it sums up to 2% of their costs. I saw an explanation post in their forum about this issue, but can‘t find it right now.

> Is there any sensible explanation why Kagi does funding Yandex?

They want access to Yandex's index. Given the quality of Kagi's results, I trust them with that call. Despite the Ukraine war being of deep personal interest to me.

It’s not funding, it’s paying for a service.

Funding does not imply a lack of receiving something in return, only a flow of money. It can be both

Yandex isn't on any sanctions list as far as I know, so Kagi is free to do business with Yandex. Yandex did need to reorganize (as their Dutch tax avoidance parent company was obviously causing them issues) but looking at https://ir.yandex/press-releases?year=2024&id=05-02-2024 it seems like all of Yandex has been sold to a generic Russian investment fund.

Legally, Kagi can buy access to Yandex' API. Whether they should is a matter of opinion. It's the main reason I haven't tried Kagi yet, and probably never will, as the owners don't seem to have a problem with any of it.

Legally they can. But we all know that Yandex had always had very strong ties with the Russian government. I used to work for Yandex for more than 6 years in early 2010s and even then there were signs of the state trying to influence it through censoring Yandex.News and various other means. And these days you have to be very naive to assume that it is not controlled by the state and people close to it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com